Mary Garden Rocked The Amphitheatre Before The Beatles

One With Nature: Mary Garden singing at Red Rock

"This week marks the 100th anniversary of touring acts playing live concerts at Red Rocks Amphitheater, Denver's iconic venue of the West. Shortly after internationally acclaimed opera singer Mary Garden crooned 'Ave Maria' on Stage Rock this week in 1911, she gushed: 'Never in any opera house the world over have I found more perfect acoustic properties.' 'I predict that someday, 20,000 people will assemble there to listen to the world's greatest masterpieces,' she wrote. Garden's sentiment proved prophetic. The dramatic twin fins of monolithic sandstone that harbor a historical record dating back 250 million years have hosted a much shorter but equally inspiring record of musical performances in the past century. 'It makes your hair just stand up when you think about the artists who've been here,' says Erik Dyce, who has shepherded Red Rocks marketing for Denver's Theatres and Arenas Division for the past 23 years. 'This place is a temple. It's overwhelming when the venue overpowers the artist.' Red Rocks has well served Denver, which acquired the venue in 1941 for $50,000 and quickly elevated the 868-acre park and venue to its crown jewel in an already impressive trove of mountain parks. Culturally and financially, Red Rocks plays an important role for the city, contributing $1.85 million in tax revenue last year. This week, Denver leaders merged the Theatres and Arenas Division, of which Red Rocks is a part, with the city's Office of Cultural Affairs, saving Denver's strapped general fund $1.2 million a year." [Source] For more information about The Beatles, Aretha Franklin, Jethro Tull, The Carpenters, Jimi Hendrix, and many more that have performed throughout the history of Red Rocks, click here. Scottish-American soprano Mary Garden's setlist for May 10, 1911, included "Ave Maria" and "Annie Laurie." Learn more about the soprano and her singing, after the jump.

The Red Rocks Amphitheater as it appears today for Rock and Jazz concerts in Colorado.

Tenors Anyone? Opera Singers That Love The Game Of Tennis

Love All: Grigolo (left) and Flórez go head-to-head on the court during some time off from the MET.

Tenors Juan Diego Flórez and Vittorio Grigolo took a break from their current performing schedule at the Metropolitan Opera to hit the courts for a friendly game of tennis. Mr. Flórez, a Rossini specialist who starred in the MET's first performances of the composer's La Donna del Lago, posted the image of the two men on his Facebook page. This isn't the first time that the worlds of tennis and opera have come together. Two instances are here and here. And tenor Lawrence Brownlee has proclaimed his enthusiasm for tennis; soprano Amelia Farrugia keeps stamina up for the stage by playing tennis in downtime; baritone Michael Chioldi has been known to pick up the racket to stay in shape;  soprano Julianna Di Giacomo grew up playing tennis; tenor Enrico Caruso didn't fair so well lasting through one set; soprano Kiri Te Kanawa keeps busy with a myriad of sports that includes tennis; bass-baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes built his physique on the game of tennis; soprano Mary Garden had advice for her friend and tennis player Bill Tilden; and tenor Ivan Kozlovsky kept his health up with the sport. It's not the only sport that cross-pollinates opera with athletics, click here for more. See more photos of opera singers with tennis champions after the jump.

Tennis champions Rafael Nadal (left) and David Ferrer on the stage of the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Spain.

Happy Thanksgiving From Mary Garden And Her Native Friends

"The Chiefs and the Prima Donna" (Photo: Underwood & Underwood) 

In a photo, originally published in the 1913 edition of The Outlook Magazine, soprano Mary Garden is seen greeting new friends: "A company of Indian chiefs from the Glacier Park National Reservation in Montana who recently came to Chicago to present a pair of moccasins to the Indian maid Natomah, in the opera of that name, a part taken by Mary Garden. The moccasins contained 200,000 beads, and it took two months' work by ten squaws to make them." [Source] Natomah is an opera in three acts by Victor Herbert. "First performances on any stage at the Metropolitan Opera House, Philadelphia, February 23, 1911, with Miss Mary Garden, Miss Lillian Grenville, Mr. Huberdeau, Mr. Dufranne, Mr. Sammarco, Mr. Preisch, Mr. Crabbe, Mr. Nicolay, Mr. McCormack." A full synopsis, information about the opera and the Natomas, as well as audio excerpts from the opera, can all be found after the jump.

Opéra National de Paris and Bibliothèque Nationale Project

If you missed "Les Tragédiennes de l’Opéra," the exhibit presented from June 9 - September 25 at Bibliothèque-musée de l’Opéra in the Palais Garnier, you can still experience it by buying the guide book assembled by Albin Michel: "Opera is enriched by its divas. All-powerful goddesses, objects of every fantasy, they are also slaves sacrificed to their art, to composers and to their public. Through them and through their science, their destiny, their cult-worship, and their power, the history of opera unfolds. This exhibition will evoke for the first time some of the great figures linked to the Palais Garnier, that erstwhile brand-new temple devoted to opera and all its excesses: among others, Rose Caron (who gave first performances of Reyer’s works as well as the roles of Sieglinde in The Walkyrie and Desdemona in Otello), Gabrielle Krauss (first performer of Gounod’s last works), Sybil Sanderson (Massenet’s muse for Thaïs), and Lucienne Bréval, the very model of the noble singer, who would reign here for thirty years…In the opening years of

the new century, modernity entered the theatre with the fiery temperaments of Aino Ackté, Emma Calvé and Mary Garden with her scandalous Salomé. This exhibition will rekindle the memory of these exceptional women through photographs, objects, jewellery, costume sketches and rare documents. Presented inside the Palais Garnier itself, the exhibition will also evoke the passage from one century to another which is as much to be felt in the repertoire as in the image reflected by these goddesses and their relationship with the public." Purchase price of the book is 49.00 €. [Source]

Check out a photo of Geneviève Vix as Salome at the Palais Garnier in 1926 (Estampe de P. Godard BmO, Musée n° 826).